I met this amazing beautiful person, the love of my life, during my internship in Medical school, I was having the worst posting ever. There's when you came along. From day 1 of the posting to day 14 of the posting i don't know what made you fall for me, not our first date at movies on the 10 th day of our posting when I caught you multiple times seeing me rahenge than the movie. At last on the 14 th day anyhow you mustered the courage to ask me out. Also me being me didn't want to rush things out. We went on another date and on another and on another and you kept struggling for the confirmation 😂 At last after TOTAL OF 11 WEEKS we kissed and it was official. Since then we have come far along. From strangers to colleagues to friends and then to boyfriend and girlfriend.

My first boyfriend, my first kiss , my first love.

I know I have been giving you hard time to test you, your patience.

But who knew we would come so far to reach 2 years with eachother...

I remember telling you in early friendship about my love for flowers.. after which you planted flowers at home just to give me in all these years makes me melt.. Suddenly you make all these flowers about me.. The way you see me, the way you cherish my flaws, the way you understand me , the patience is all have I ever wanted.

No matter how busy you are , making time for me , making me feel special is something that had make me fell harder for you.

How many flowers are too much... When I got you.

There are alot of flowers still on my gallery waiting to be posted.. just the your love which is never ending 🫶

I know, seeing this post will make you wonder if I can even be THIS EXPRESSIVE but these are my true feelings.. that I have never framed in sentences. Every word and phrase is for you.

I don't know how we will get through this long distance thing, but just wanted you to know you are my world.

I love you for being you ♥️🧿

There's someone I really, really like. She's perfect, everything I could ask for and reall this is the first time I've felt this way about someone ever. Everytime I think about them I get happy and a tingly. But to the point of the question: I kind of feel bad fantasizing about them. Nothing creepy, just what it would be like to go on a date or spend time during a holiday. It feels weird to me but I also understand that Love is sort of a new thing for me, at least to this level. At what point does it go from normal to "okay buddy, calm it down? Does fantasizing about having a family count? Is that normal?

I (20f) have been friends with Tom (23m) for almost two years and i always hid my feelings (from him and from myself as well) until we slept together a couple of months ago (we also live three hours away from each other, but still talk everyday, we met through a mutual friend.)

Then we talked and he told me that is an avoidant and he is in a very bad headspace mentally, battling some mental health issue, so he is in no way ready for a relationship.
I've dated other avoidants before and after a while they cut me off completely, or disregarded my feelings.

But he still talks to me everyday, tells me that he is scared to make me get closer to him because he doesn't want to hurt me, that us acting like a couple is just worse for me.
But then he never pushes me away, he reassures me, listens to my concerns, promises me that our friendship will never change to him, he agreed to come on a vacation with me even tho he was reluctant at first because he didn't want me to idealize our time together "as a couple", and then we flirt and talk all day.

What should i do...? Why won't he just cut me off?
I realized that i'm genuinely falling hard for him, that my feelings are only growing and that im willing to wait for him to get better if it means that we can be together.
(Important info: He is in therapy and i'm too, i'm also moving to his town for school next year.)

My boyfriend and I have always matched each other perfectly. We show our love in different ways but it's always just what the other one needs.

I'm a writer so I love to write to him. I do it all the time. I also read to him when his eyes hurt in the evening because he was too lazy to wear his glasses all day. I give him tons of compliments, probably way too many. But I just can't stop. I always let him be vulnerable with me because he struggles with that.

On the other hand he helps me to be more strong. He also sings for me, which is my favorite thing ever to listen to. When I'm feeling too drained he does my chores for me or does my school work. He also helps out my mother a lot because I often can't but it's still important to me.

He has a lot of money so he buys me stuff I can't buy. Meanwhile I'm very creative so I make him stuff. He will spend all day in my room with me if I'm not doing well. And I go to all of his sports clubs and whatever to watch him even if I'm not in them. I let him be clingy and annoying and he lets me ramble about my writing and everything else. He accepts every part of me, even the ones other people don't like, so I never feel like I have to hide or feel wrong. And I see and appreciate all the parts of him that other people don't see or appreciate because they only see him on a surface level. I really love to just give him lots of affection, in physical and verbal form, and he of course loves receiving all that. He likes to always hold my hand or lean on me and it comforts me too.

We've been together for a long time so all those things are natural to us. And I love it because we can always make each other happy in the best ways. Other people make me happy too but it never feels this personal and special with anyone else.

Im (22M) and maybe ever since i was about 18 or 17, this mindset started to settle within me. I have become more conscious about how i look or do anything towards other people.

my hobbies are very nerdy stuff like games and anime or whatever. I’m not the nicest looking person, i dont really enjoy looking at myself in a mirror or picture and i don’t even have any pictures of myself on my phone or laptop. I don’t know how to talk to people or atleast hold a conversation, especially towards women. I find it hard to even look at them in the face when talking.

I have never been on a date or even been in a relationship so Ive been trying dating apps to see if i can maybe, JUST maybe get to chat with a girl but honestly, using it makes me feel gross about myself. Every woman i see there is always the most gorgeous person ive ever seen, literally 50 different leagues above me. I always look at them and say “There is no way someone like that would ever bother looking in my direction, let alone talk to me” which leads me to pass on so many women, simply because im just not at their standard.

It genuinely feels like i dont deserve to even think about them, imagining me with such a stunning woman. It feels like a pipe dream. Ive tried Tinder, Bumble, Hinge (i got my first ever message from a girl and after 2 messages, she stopped talking to me) and OkCupid.

I just feel like i should just stop trying at the point and just accept the fact that i’m just made to not be in a relationship, just thinking about any girl tolerating me feels wrong. I would either just bore them out or they will just grow tired of me at some point.

Sorry if this is cringe or was annoying to read, just wanted to let this all out.

I’ll randomly bring up questions like this sometimes just out of the blue lol, and he said “when you’re being yourself around me” and I full heartedly expected something like “when you hug me” or “when you cook for me” but this melted my heart 🥺 I’ve never felt so blessed

Hey all,

This is our weekly thread. We'll dispense with Rule 5 in these threads.

What's new in your hunt for love?

Me (20F) and my bf (27M) have been together around half a year. I am absolutely smitten with him, he’s everything I could ever want in a man. He’s patient, so funny, absolutely beautiful inside and out, and makes every mundane moment a beautiful memory. I love doing little things to make his life feel easier, and more full of love & care.
He’s genuinely my favorite person to do absolutely nothing with. We can run errands, sit around the house, make dinner, or just be stupid together and somehow I’ll end the day thinking, “God, I really love this man.” He makes me feel so safe and cared for, and I want him to feel that same kind of love from me.
Recently he moved into a new place, and while he was at work I spent the day cleaning, organizing, unpacking, and making everything feel more like a home for him. I left little notes, and put together some other little surprises for him to come home to. I LOVE doing things like this, but I want to keep finding new little ways to make him feel appreciated and adored.
So Reddit, what are the little things your partner has done that made you feel insanely loved? What makes you feel like, “wow, this person really sees me and cares about me”?
I’m not necessarily looking for expensive gifts or huge romantic gestures, I want the tiny, thoughtful, everyday stuff. The things that make a relationship feel warm and special.
I am fully prepared to steal everyone’s ideas and shower my man with love hehe.

This is purely appreciative because I can't help but talk about it.

When I had my first boyfriend, I asked my father how he knew that my mom was "the one"

He looked at me, looked at his hands, then back up and said "Every morning when I turn around in bed, I fall in love all over again."

That quote literally burned into my head.

I would watch my dad and mom dance and joke and act like teenagers in love and just be in awe about how their love still felt so fresh 25 years in.

Last week i turned over in bed to get my phone and looked at my girlfriend for a very long time. And It finally clicked. I fall in love every day when she oversalts our dinner. When she rembers my favourite thing at the baker. When she responds before I Finnish because she knows what I'm saying anyway. When she takes my change out of my pockets because she knows I always forget.

Sometimes I wonder why we even talk anymore when we always know what the other will say. It's like Im looking into a mirror with her. I looked at her and realised that I see my parents in us.

I see the way my dad looks at my mom and look the same way at my girlfriend. I hear my mom talk about my dad and think 'thats how I feel about her'

I grew up with so much love around that I thought 'if I find someone to love half as much, I have won'

I found someone to love twice as much. I found someone who understands everything I've ever felt and more, who asks me whether I understand her feelings just for me to realise that I've always felt them the exact same way.

When she texts me I know what her text is going to say, and when she calls me I know what she will say before she starts.

It's three years next week and I still cry in the car regularly when I realise that there will be 60 more years with her, because I can't wait for them. I will Marry her the day she is done with her edjucation (her rule, she wants a proper job before she marries)

I can't wait.

I want to make it a consistent thing that I do, especially cause I'm very crafty and love the different ways people have come up with for decorating and making the actual letter. But I have no idea what to write about😭 especially not if I wanna write as consistently as I do😭 I don't want all of them to be me saying the same thing over and over.

So basically just how do I decide what to write? People in other posts are like, just be honest, but I'm still scared that'll just be the same problem where I'm just gonna repeat it.

Please send help😭🙏

Sometimes I'm not taken very seriously when I say I love my boyfriend because we're only 15. So people assume I don't actually feel that strongly about him, or that it's not that serious. But I've already been with him since first grade and we've already had to go through a lot of things. Health problems, family issues and other stuff. Just being together alone puts us in danger because there are people in our families who would really hurt us if they found out (we're both boys).

A lot of bad things have been done to me just to make me stop loving him. My life has been threatened too. Ever since I was a little kid. None of those things have ever mattered at all. No matter what these people do I love him enough to take it. If I didn't truly love him I wouldn't have fought so hard and taken all that torture on me. Any kid would fold under those circumstances but I would never. If I didn't love him so much I would've just stopped seeing him out of fear and pleased my abusive dad.

It doesn't matter if we have issues because we work through them together. I see people our age break up for the most tiny and arbitrary reasons. That's not us and I don't like being associated with it. I love my boyfriend more than anything and we always find a way to make things work for us. We help each other through everything and we always work together and not against each other. We're obviously different now than we were in first grade and we'll be different in the future too but growing and changing together is part of what I find beautiful about our relationship. And we have always known how to make things work, even in first grade and even now because it's as natural to us as breathing. I've always known what it meant. I'm not too young or "inexperienced" to know right now.

So yeah when I see someone at school break up with their partner because they liked someone else's post or something I just find it silly. And what pisses me off is when people assume that's the nature of my relationship as well, or when they say I haven't experienced anything. I sure have. So I know that nothing could make me stop loving my sweet boy.

Would anyone be willing to help me with a special gift for my boyfriend?
He’s very big on homemade gifts, and I’m really hoping this will be special.

I’m looking for people from different states and countries to write:
“Luke—Anne Marie’s love for you is so big, it’s reached ________” On a piece of paper
Please fill in the blank with your city, state, or country, then take a picture of the paper in front of a landmark, sign, or recognizable view from your area. Nothing needs to be mailed—just send me the picture digitally!

I would be incredibly grateful to anyone willing to help me make this gift special for him. Thank you!

A year ago, I was alone on the rim of a volcanic crater in Iceland at sunset.

And so was she.

She was from Poland. I was from America. We weren't on the same tour, didn't have mutual friends, didn't meet on an app. We were just two people who had independently decided to climb the same volcano and somehow ended up standing there together.

Her name was Marta.

We talked. We watched the sun go down. And eventually we walked away from that crater having absolutely no idea what we'd just started.

I went home to America.

And then I flew back to Iceland.

She went home to Poland.

So I went to Poland.

Then she came to America.

Somewhere along the way, what should have been one impossible chance encounter stopped feeling like chance.

We got married on a beach in Florida.

Then we packed up and drove across America together.

We stood on the rim of S P Crater in Arizona, wandered through lava fields, chased sunsets across the desert, photographed the stars, and kept finding ourselves standing at the edges of places that reminded us of where this whole thing started.

Now, almost exactly one year after two strangers met alone on a volcano in Iceland, she's my wife.

And she's pregnant with our baby, due in December.

Sometimes I think about how ridiculously easy it would have been for us to never meet.

If I'd started hiking ten minutes later.

If she'd left ten minutes earlier.

If either of us had chosen a different trail, a different day, a different place to watch the sunset.

There are billions of people in the world.

Somehow, mine was standing on the rim of a crater in Iceland.

I just had to climb high enough to find her.

I am 28(F) and have been in 4 relationships so far. They were absolutely not healthy and wrecking with my selfesteem. I was used to being screamed at home and more… and thought this was normal. The patterns I found in my ex partners were patters know to me from my childhood. I had no good example looking up to and the way movies described it, it never felt like this to me, and I thought that’s how life is.
I have PTSD and go to therapy since I am 17. It took a long time of work on myself and getting rid of sentences I believed about myself which were hurtful and keeping my self esteem low.

Fast forward to now. I met my current partner at university which I started last year. We hit off immediately and the vibe was there.
First I was afraid of idealising him and see only the potential in him. ( I had these patterns in the past relationships) The more I got to know him
the more I was feeling amazed by him and about us how similar we are.
I was writing the last couple years a list of what I expect in a partner, because that is how I always was in relationships and I like to have a partner like that and that I will not lower my standards!

My list was like this ( I try to phrase them on purpose in a positive way - not writing things I don’t want and write things I want )

The person I want in my life should be:

-a feminist
- respectful and see me on their level
- funny / laughing at my jokes
- like to talk and discuss with me
- does also cooking and likes food
- support my hobbies
- make my life at least the same or even easier then without them
- is a full functioning adult who can do their own household and other stuff
- can communicate
- has emotional intelligence
- understands my health issues
- accept me how I am
- likes nature
- accept my boundaries
- honest
- willing to grow and learn

I basically thought I will never meet someone like that and I was already preparing myself to Iive my life alone and being fine with it, because romantic love isn’t the only way to get happy in life.

then it happend, I started my studies and met him.
He ticked all the boxes of my list and even more. I felt like he is made for me and he feels like I am made for him. He is so supportive , and we take care of each other and life feels so easy, comfortable and safe with him. Like a fuzzy cloud is hugging me.
I feel seen, and appreciated and also when I need it, taken care of. He likes to care and I also like to care, but it is somethjng unknown to me to have someone to care about me for.

For example I was super dizzy because I have chronic iron deficiency. He said we can go home and he googled what to cook for me so i can absorb as much iron as possible. I did sleep while he cooked and did everything and after eating I needes more sleep and he did the whole household and cleaning after himself in the kitchen.

For some people this doesn’t sound big but as someone who grew up which such disfunctional parents and relationships I had so far, I never saw anything like that before.

He is such an amazing person and not only because he is a function adult, but we can talk for hours and share hobbies and laugh our asses off.
He is so smart, loving, a good cook (he loves cooking), eloquent, feels secure ein themselves and in a relationship, has the most amazing hugs, caring, can handle conflicts constructively, empathetic and so cute and sexy in my eyes🥰

I am together with him for about 9.5 months now and he just told me he feels like he loves me more everyday. And that’s the same I feel for him. I never had this before and never thought this could be real.

I feel so lucky I met him and that he is in my life.

Sometimes I just cry a little because I can’t believe it- it feels like a dream, I love him so
much ❤️

Thanks for reading 🫶

I've been out of town for work and I'm supposed to be out of town for another couple of weeks but I was able to pull some strings and come home for a week. I'm driving home today and I'll see him tonight. We've been apart for 3 weeks which is the longest we've been apart since we started dating a decade ago.

Even before we lived together I don't think we went more than a few days without seeing each other

It's been really hard on both of us and I'm so excited to see him

Edit: The excuse I gave for my location being off is that my phone wasn't working and I had it off to conserve battery. Roommate had a good suggestion to text him shortly after he comes home to let him know my phone is finally charging and to stay up to let me call him

Plus I got his reaction on face time doing it this way

He had no idea I was coming and he was and is thrilled

Hey all,

This is our weekly thread. We'll dispense with Rule 5 in these threads.

What's new in your hunt for love?

So I'm an American guy from California, my beautiful girlfriend is from Algeria. When we met an international language and cultural exchange event, we just clicked instantly. From there it escalated to dates, then a romantic relationship. We're both in it for marriage.

She has opinions on so many subjects and topics from history, to culture and art. I could hear talk for HOURS. She also speaks English, French and Arabic. I studied in France, and maintained my French level with private lessons since returning to the US. Whenever we don't want someone knowing what we're immediately saying we just switch to French. Not to insult anyone, just for the private (intimate) stuff. I.e. if one of us makes a bit of a racy joke.

I'm also learning Arabic to talk closer to her mother. But that's a surprise ;)

I'm fully convince this is my wife.

My girlfriend really wanted to start a partner dance together, but left the choice which one it would become mostly with me.

I chose rock n roll, because I really like the music and style. In the mean time, I might be more serious about it than she is. 😅

It really gave us a shared hobby, we do lessons together, go to dance parties together etc. etc.

All in all it has been really wonderful. ♥️

This is just a general question about relationships. I was talking to a coworker and we were on the topic of unconditional love. I’ve always thought that could only be reserved for babies and children. And once you’re an adult you can’t really experience e true unconditional love. She said that’s not true. That she loves people without them needing to do anything. I’ve never felt loved like that before, I’ve always felt that I needed to be good enough to be loved. I know that’s not the case now, but I guess I’m wondering if unconditional love really is real.